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FOUR  GREAT  HUMANISTS 


CORNELIUS  B.  BRADLEY 


leprinted  from  the  Univbesity  op  California  Cheoniclk,  Vol.  IX,  No.  1] 


*^     OF  THE 

,    UNIV^RSITV 
\ 


BERKELEY 

THE   UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
1907 


-*^.:|%f 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


FOUR  GREAT  HUMANISTS 


CORNELIUS  B.  BRADLEY 


[Reprinted  from  the  Uxiversity  of  California  Chronicle,  Vol.  IX.  No.  1] 


*^     OF  THE  ^ 


BERKELEY 

THE   UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
1907 


FOUR  GREAT  HUMANISTS.^ 


Cornelius  B.  Bradley. 


•  There  is  one  master  problem  of  the  ages ; — a  problem  at 
which  have  toiled  all  generations  of  men,  all  races,  all  con- 
ditions, all  times,  all  societies; — a  problem  which  includes 
all  others,  summing  up  in  its  own  vast  synthesis  everything 
that  elsewhere  is  separately  worked  out  as  religion,  philos- 
ophy, social  order,  art,  science,  or  mastery  of  the  material 
world.  It  is  the  human  problem,  as  one  of  its  latest  students 
has  called  it : — how  to  make  man  truly  humanjjiow  jo  bring 
him  into  the  inheritance  which  is  ^lajnlyjn^^awjbo  realize 
for  him  the  kingly  destiny  which  all  augury  foretells ;  how 
to_crown  him — individually  and  socially,  with  that  perfec- 
tion of  strength,  beauty,  and  happiness  in_himself  and  in 
his^surroundings,  without  which  his^Jife,  however  splendid 
in  outward  circumstance,  must  ever  seem  forlorn  and  tragic. 
TEe  ages  have  toiled  at  this  problem ;  but  for  the  most  part 
merely  on  some  special  element  or  factor  in  it,  without  any 
adequate  vision  of  its  vast  scope — without  clear  conscious- 
ness even  of  what  they  w^ere  doing.  Only  twice,  so  far  as 
we  know,  in  the  history  of  the  race  has  the  problem  as  a 
whole  come  clearly  into  view,  and  received  the  conscious 
consideration  it  calls  for: — once  in  Plato's  time,  and  once 
again  in  ours.  Of  that  earlier  treatment  I  shall  not  venture 
to  speak  in  the  presence  of  men  who  have  made  it  their 
^  A  paper  read  before  the  Berkeley  Club,  January,  1906. 


special  study;  nor,  having  touched  upon  the  matter  in  an 
earlier  paper,  shall  I  stop  now  to  note  the  separate  contri- 
bution which  each  of  the  great  ancient  civilizations  made 
towards  a  future  solution;  nor  yet  of  the  part  which,  in 
these  recent  times,  races  other  than  our  own  have  taken  in 
its  discussion.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  within  the  century  just 
closed  the  human  problem  has  become  again  the  object  of 
absorbing  interest  on  the  part  of  all  thinking  men,  with  a 
clearer  vision  than  ever  before  of  its  real  dimensions  and  of 
the  multitude  of  factors  involved,  and  with  a  more  conscious 
determination  to  work  it  out  unto  some  approximate  solu- 
tion both  reasonable  and  practical.  In  this  attempt  our 
own  English  race  has  been  among  the  very  foremost,  hav- 
ing received  the  full  force  of  the  ideas  and  the  enthusiasm 
which  ushered  in  the  great  Revolution,  mthout  the  dis- 
couragement, disaster,  and  loss  attending  that  crisis  on 
the  Continent.  Its  experience  of  world  empire,  its  wealth 
— with  the  contrasts  of  human  condition  and  of  oppor- 
tunity thereby  revealed, — the  buoyant  hope  of  its  own 
expansive  movement,  peopling  the  Antipodes  with  its  col- 
onies, and  above  all,  its  greatness  of  heart,  its  instinct  for 
large  affairs,  and  its  traditional  sense  of  moral  responsi- 
bility, have  all  combined  to  force  this  problem  upon  the  at- 
tention of  its  master  minds — statesmen,  seers,  poets,  artists, 
soldiers.  Four  of  the  men  so  engaged  upon  this  problem — 
Carlyle,  Emerson,  Ruskin,  Arnold — were  gifted  with  elo- 
quence and  expressive  power  so  extraordinary  as  to  place 
them  at  once  in  the  front  rank  of  all  the  serious  writers  of 
the  time.  To  each  of  these  men  was  revealed  one  profound 
phase  or  aspect  of  the  whole  truth  concerning  man's  salva- 
tion— one  sentence  of  the  complete  revelation  which  the 
world  yet  waits  to  hear.  Then  his  lips  were  touched  as  with 
a  coal  from  the  altar ;  and  on  his  heart  evermore  was  laid  the 
burden  of  prophecy  unto  an  amazed  and  too  often  a  gain- 
saying world.  Each  in  his  long  career  became  entangled  in 
other  matters,  in  controversies  and  criticisms  which  often 


have  obscured  the  real  issue  for  which  he  stood.  More  un- 
fortunately still,  the  utterance  of  one  has  often  seemed  op- 
posed or  denied  by  that  of  another,  to  the  nullification  of 
the  real  truth  in  both.  But  now  that  the  babel  of  voices 
about  them  has  subsided  somewhat,  and  from  a  little  dis- 
tance we  can  distinguish  their  words  more  truly,  it  may  be 
worth  while,  if  we  can,  to  put  their  separate  sentences  to- 
gether, and  spell  out  so  much  of  the  whole  prophecy  as  it 
has  been  given  them  to  teach.  At  the  feet  of  these  four 
prophets  it  has  been  my  good  fortune  to  sit  often  of  late. 
So  far  as  a  professed  learner  and  disciple  of  them  all  may 
without  presumption  attempt  it,  I  desire  to  clear  the  master- 
thought  of  each  from  whatever  is  incidental  or  irrelevant,  to 
apply  whatever  correction  may  prove  necessary  for  point  of 
view  or  personal  bias,  and  to  place  it  then  in  its  true  relation 
to  that  of  the  others — limiting  myself  strictly  to  their  utter- 
ance on  the  one  great  problem  we  have  named. 

Of  these  four  Carlyle  comes  first : — earliest  in  point  of 
time,  simplest  and  most  direct  in  his  language,  in  spirit  and 
manner  most  nearly  approaching  his  great  prototype,  the 
Hebrew  prophet.  The  starting  point  of  his  thought  was  the 
miseryand  _confusion  of  the  world  of  men  about  him,  its 
crying  need  of  redemption,  and  the  futility  of  expecting 
tEat  disorder  and  unreason  would  ever  mend  themselves,  or 
that  any  mere  aggregation  and  summation  of  a  world  full 
of  foolish  and  helpless  individuals  would  ever  develop  the 
wisdom  and  virtue  needed  to  establish  and  direct  a  happy 
human  society. 

The  times  in  England  were  such  indeed  as  to  give  pause 
to  the  most  thoughtless.  In  the  social  world,  an  effete  aris- 
tocracy, incapable  longer  of  its  high  function  of  leadership, 
and  concerned  chiefly  in  keeping  its  own  prestige  and  priv- 
ilege intact;  the  rising  power  of  commerce,  with  its  new 
aristocracy  of  wealth,  and  its  slogan  of  Supply  and  De- 
mand; and  finally  the  Enceladus  of  Democracy,  starved, 
chained,  and  buried  under  Etna,  but  beginning  to  feel  his 


power,  and  to  stir  portentously  in  Com  Law  agitation,  Par- 
liamentary reform,  and  Chartist  uprisings.  In  the  spiritual 
and  moral  world  a  corresponding  chaos : — old  faiths  fiercely 
held  in  form,  while  their  substance  was  fast  dissolving 
away ;  shallow  and  complacent  eighteenth  century  optimism, 
and  laissez-faire,  crying  ''Peace!  Peace!"  when  the  very 
structure  of  society  seemed  threatening  to  fall  about  their 
ears; — everywhere  either  an  unreasoning  confidence  in  for- 
mulas, or  the  lurking  taint  of  insincerity,  or  the  flat  denial 
of  materialism,  or  worst  of  all,  sheer  indifferentism.  This 
view  very  likely  may  seem  to  us  darker  than  the  facts  really 
warranted;  but  it  was  the  view  strongly  held,  even  at  a 
somewhat  later  date,  by  the  other  two  Englishmen  of  our 
little  group,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  the  case  was  serious 
indeed. 

In  a  time,  then,  like  that  of  John  the  Baptist,  and  in  a 
mood  like  his,  Carlyle  began  to  preach,  ' '  Repent  ye,  for  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand!"  His  work,  like  John's, 
was  a  work  of  preparation,  and  necessarily  in  large  degree 
destructive.  By  him  the  axe  was  laid  at  the  root  of  the 
tree,  and  every  tree  that  bore  not  good  fruit  was  to  be  hewn 
down  and  cast  into  the  fire.  Like  John,  he  had  no  working 
scheme  of  outward  and  material  betterment  to  offer,  nor 
had  he  either  faith  in  or  patience  for  any  such  device.  The 
real  difficulty  lay  within,  in  a  wrong  state  of  the  heart : — in 
Pharisaical  self-complacency,  in  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  pre- 
tence, in  unbelief  in  the  eternal  reality  and  power  of  truth 
and  justice.  These  devils  he  would  exorcise;  in  the  repen- 
tant heart  he  would  establish  the  beginnings  of  the  life  of 
faith  and  obedience; — for  all  further  guidance  and  salva- 
tion, especially  for  the  masses  of  mankind,  he  could  only 
point  expectant  souls  to  the  Hero-Savior  sent  of  God,  al- 
ready no  doubt  among  us,  but  awaiting  the  hour  of  his  re- 
vealing. A  noble  message  indeed,  of  commanding  simplicity 
and  power,  preached  from  a  thousand  different  texts,  with 
unparalleled  opulence  and  splendor  of  illustration,  during 


forty  long  years  of  prophetic  ministry!  A  message  pro- 
foundly true  for  all  times;  and  perhaps  for  no  age  more 
needful  than  for  that  to  which  it  was  preached  ! 

The  thought  behind  this  message  was  simple,  too,  though 
startling.  Spirit  is  the  ultimate  and_ojQly_reality.  Manjs 
spirit,  and  participant  theref ore_of  the  dWine  nature.  All 
real  growth  and  bettermenf  for  man  is  spiritual  betterment, 
whose"motive  "force" is  the" compulsion_ojjove _ and^rev^ 
fof  "a^Eeavenly  Ideal.  But  the  mass  of  men  are  too  blind  to 
see  or  too  weak  to  follow  the  Ideal  unaided.  The  only  hope 
for  society,  then,  is  the  incarnation  of  divine  power  from 
time  to  time  in  certain  individuals  gifted  with  clear  vision 
of  the  Ideal,  and  commissioned  to  guide  and  direct  the  hu- 
man race  on  its  march  thither.  These  are  the  Hero-Kings. 
To  discover  and  enthrone  them  is  the  supreme  problem  of 
society.    To  reverence  and  obey  them  is  its  only  duty. 

The  limitations  of  this  doctrine  are  obvious.  Carlyle's 
emphasis  is  placed  on  the  weakness  and  foolishness  of  hu- 
man nature,  which  keeps  the  race, — and,  if  this  were  the 
whole  truth,  must  forever  keep  it, — in  a  state  of  tutelage. 
The  doctrine  is  therefore  essentially  pessimistic  from  the 
start;  and  pessimistic  also  in  its  effect,  as  the  fate  of  its 
prophet  abundantly  shows.  Human  progress  under  its 
working  alone  can  never  become  a  steady  growth;  it  must 
be  rather  a  series  of  catastrophes  or  explosions  which  mo- 
mentarily burst  the  bonds.  But  the  forces  which  once  have 
brought  freedom  soon  become  new  chains  to  bind,  until  an- 
other deliverer  must  come  to  repeat  the  process,  and  so  on 
ad  mfinitum.  Moreover,  in  the  case  of  the  heaven-sent  Hero, 
force,  or  perhaps  we  should  say  effectiveness — is  too  readily 
assumed  to  be  the  sure  token  of  the  inward  graces  of  wisdom 
and  goodness,  which  alone  are  saving, — a  result,  no  doubt, 
of  Carlyle's  extraordinary  delight  in  the  contemplation  of 
power ; — while  his  instinct  for  dramatic  illustration  has  led 
him  to  choose  for  us  a  most  amazing  gallery  of  saviors  of 
society,  from  Odin  and  Mahomet  to  Frederick  the  Great, 


and  the  bloody  tyrant  of  Paraguay.  But  after  all  necessary 
corrections  have  been  made  for  over-emphasis,  for  bias  of 
temper,  for  limitation  of  view,  what  factors  of  the  great 
problem  are  more  universally  true,  or  more  constant,  than 
these  which  Carlyle  so  eloquently  enforced — man 's  outward 
need  of  inspired  leadership,  and  his  inward  need  of  rever- 
ence and  obedience  ? 

It  is  no  refutation  or  disparagement  of  Carlyle 's  doc- 
trine to  say  that  it  is  aristocratic.  The  aristocratic  factor, 
we  may  be  sure,  can  never  be  eliminated  from  the  human 
scheme  without  the  destruction  of  human  society  itself. 
The  world  may  well  be  thankful  that,  at  a  time  when  its 
importance  was  greatly  obscured,  or  even  openly  denied, 
there  was  found  so  valiant  a  champion  and  defender  of  it. 
But,  as  Tennyson  tells  us — 

God  fulfills  himself  in  many  ways, 
Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world; 

— and  the  thought  was  Carlyle 's  before  it  was  Tennyson's. 
The  high  doctrine  of  man's  need  of  inspired  leadership, 
through  its  slippery  corollary  of  the  divine  right  of  kings, 
led  straight,  as  we  have  seen,  to  the  apotheosis  of  tyranny. 
That  doctrine  needed  to  be  met  and  safeguarded  by  the 
counter-doctrine  and  truth  of  the  divine  inspiration  of 
every  man,  the  necessity  of  individual  initiative,  the  duty 
of  self-reliance.  The  prophet  of  this  individualistic  faith 
was  our  own  Emerson,  sincere  admirer  and  life-long  friend 
of  Carlyle.  Singularly  enough,  the  philosophic  basis  of  the 
two  was  identical : — ^tMt"man  is  sprfi^~and  partaker  of  ^the 
divine  nature ;  that  only  by  love  and  obedience  to  the  heav- 
enly call  does  he  rise  into  a  better  life — can  he  attain  salva- 
tion. But  the  one,  considering  humanity  as  massed  in  so- 
ciety, thought  only  of  the  call  from  without,  the  voice  of 
divinely  commissioned  leadership.  The  other,  considering 
the  individual,  thought  only  of  the  still  small  voice  of  in- 
ward prompting.  Because  his  Hero-King  did  not  appear 
when  most  he  was  needed,  or,  appearing,  was  thwarted  and 


brought  to  naught  through  the  stupidity  of  men,  Carlyle 
sank  ever  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  pit  of  despair ;  while 
Emerson,  sure  that  the  soul  is  ever  in  communication  with 
universal  spirit  and  the  source  of  all  light,  was  radiant  with 
hope.  True,  there  were  many  things  in  the  times  and  in  his 
own  immediate  surroundings  to  favor  this  buoyancy  of 
Emerson's  thought.  The  nation  whose  life  he  shared  was 
in  the  first  flush  of  its  youth,  with  a  dawning  sense  of  meas- 
ureless opportunity  and  coming  greatness — its  magnificent 
resources  as  yet  scarcely  touched;  its  diversity,  its  roomy 
freedom,  its  untried  problems  all  beckoning  the  aspiring 
spirit  to  enter  in  and  possess.  And  no  doubt  these  same 
things  had  much  to  do  with  the  way  in  which  this  strong 
voice  of  faith  and  courage  was  heard  and  received.  But 
his  hope  was  as  far  as  possible  removed  from  that  shallow 
American  self-complacency  which  so  often  shames  us  in  the 
eyes  of  the  truly  wise.  It  rested  not  on  any  special  phase 
of  time  or  circumstance,  but  on  the  unswerving  conviction 
that  God  himself  guides  each  soul  of  man,  and  He  cannot 
guide  him  wrong.  Nor  was  Emerson  concerned  beyond  the 
individual,  for,  if  the  individuals'"  are '  all  God-guided,  so- 
ciety, he  argued,  will  take  care  of  itself.  A  much  more 
lofty  and  spiritual  doctrine  this  than  the  other ;  yet  for  that 
very  reason  more  difficult  of  ready  application  in  a  world 
not  spiritual,  but  carnal. 

The  chief  difficulty  with  the  other  scheme  was  to  find 
the  Hero-King,  and  get  him  enthroned, — and  then  to  keep 
him  from  being  spoiled  by  the  servility  and  the  flattery  of 
men.  But  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  any  general  appli- 
cation of  Emerson 's  scheme  are  much  more  subtle  and  per- 
plexing. First  of  all,  the  individual  alone  is  its-end.  It 
scarcely  recognizes  society  at  all  save  in  its  reaction  upon 
the  individual  spirit.  The  only  real  life  is  the  secret  life  of 
thought.  Society  does  scarcely  more  for  that  than  to  fur- 
nish the  thinker  with  a  convenient  laboratory  or  a  stage  to 
which  he  may  now  and  then  come  from  his  central  solitude 


10 


and  test  the  quality  of  his  thought  by  putting  it  into  action. 
History,  the  record  of  society,  has  for  him  no  directive 
force; — the  most  that  it  can  do  for  one  is  through  its  con- 
crete embodiments  to  suggest  to  the  soul  certain  features  of 
the  soul's  own  divine  excellence  which  it  might  otherwise 
have  overlooked.  History  is,  in  fact,  but  a  mirror  in  which 
a  man  sees  nothing  but  his  own  image.  In  travel  and  in  art 
man  finds  nothing  which  he  himself  does  not  first  bring  to 
them.  Government  is  a  thing  to  be  left  to  clerks  and  desks. 
Reforms,  even  of  giant  evils  like  slavery,  excite  in  Emerson 
but  the  most  languid  interest.  The  heat  and  passion  inevit- 
able to  them  are  evils  quite  as  great  as  those  they  would  dis- 
place. In  fact,  the  reader  is  apt  to  find  himself  in  a  topsy- 
turvy world  where  ''gravitation  turns  the  other  way" — 
where  the  part  is  greater  than  the  whole,  where  one  over- 
balances all. 

Much  of  this  confusion  is  due,  no  doubt,  to  Emerson's 
fondness  for  pungency  and  paradox,  to  his  inveterate  habit 
of  whimsical  over-statement,  to  his  unwillingness  to  blur  the 
sharp  outline  of  a  statement  by  any  hint  of  the  many  quali- 
fications and  limitations  which  in  his  own  case  his  clear 
sanity  never  failed  to  apply.  But  apart  from  this,  the  doc- 
trine in  itself  is  plainly  esoteric,  capable  of  being  under- 
stood and  practiced  only  by  souls  already  enlightened.  To 
others — to  the  "average  sensual  man"  as  Arnold  calls  him 
— its  very  basis  and  the  terms  in  which  it  is  announced  are 
alike  unintelligible.  In  his  case  what  can  be  the  outcome  of 
counsels  such  as,  "Act  only  upon  your  impulse,"  "Obey 
your  heart, ' '  but  horrors  like  those  of  the  Salem  witchcraft 
or  of  the  Inquisition.  ' '  If  the  light  that  is  in  thee  be  dark- 
ness, how  great  is  that  darkness ! ' '  Denial  of  all  external 
authority  brings  one  perilously  near  to  antinomianism. 
Emerson 's  reply  to  this  criticism  is  characteristic :  "If  any 
one  imagines  that  this  law  is  lax,  let  him  keep  its  command- 
ment one  day ! ' ' 

But  none  of  these  criticisms  can  shake  the  real  truth  of 


11 


the  law  itself,  or  obscure  the  serene  reflection  of  it  in  the 
character  and  life  of  Emerson.  Nor  can  they  lessen  the 
value  of  that  great  tide  of  courage  and  aspiration  which 
was,  perhaps,  to  most  of  those  who  heard  him  the  best  result 
of  his  prophesying.  I  cannot  think  that  any  sincere  soul 
was  ever  misled  by  Emerson's  statement  of  the  truth.  Only 
shallow  souls  could  ever  have  perverted  the  noble  individ- 
ualism of  it  into  the  silly  and  selfish  travesty  we  all  know 
too  well. 

Thus  clearly  were  preached  these  two  cardinal  doctrines 
touching  man's  salvation;  thus  strongly  were  planted  these 
two  pillars  of  his  hope ;  here,  rightly  in  the  main,  were  lo- 
cated the  two  foci  of  the  curve  of  progress.  Neither  doc- 
trine was  new.  Both  were  old — as  old  as  the  earliest  spir- 
itual thought  on  the  subject.  Yet  each  gathered  from  the 
circumstances  of  its  utterance,  from  the  needs  of  the  age, 
and  from  the  genius  and  character  of  the  man,  an  emphasis 
and  a  quickening  power  well  nigh  unexampled  in  recent 
times.  Rightly,  in  the  main,  I  think  we  shall  all  agree,  were 
these  cardinal  points  located;  but  each  with  too  exclusive 
attention,  as  though  it  alone  were  the  center  of  the  sphere, — 
with  too  little  conscious  reference  to  the  other  as  its  neces- 
sary correlate  and  complement.  Both  men  planted  them- 
selves firmly  on  righteousness  as  the  only  salvation,  and  on 
divine  guidance  sought  through  reverence  and  faith,  as  the 
only  means  thereto.  But  divine  guidance,  in  the  thought 
of  the  one,  was  for  the  mass  of  men,  and  therefore  mediate 
— incarnate  in  human  leadership ;  in  the  thought  of  the 
other,  it  was  for  the  individual,  and  therefore  immediate — 
a  distinct  revelation  from  God.  Its  chief  attribute  for  the 
one  was  action  and  force ;  for  the  other,  thought  and  char- 
acter. Each  view  is  partial,  and  appeals  to  a  distinct  group 
of  men;  neither  alone  suffices  for  man's  salvation.  As  Jou- 
bert  finely  says:^  ''Force  and  Right  are  rulei-s  of  this 
world;  but  Force  till  Right  is  ready."    To  bring  these  two 

^  Quoted  by  Arnold,  Essays  1st  Series,  p.  12. 


12 


into  harmony,  to  find  the  radii  which  link  these  foci  to- 
gether, so  that  from  them  both  the  true  orbit  of  human  pro- 
gress may  be  more  nearly  found, — was  a  task  reserved  for 
other  men ;  and  one  of  these  men  was  Ruskin. 

Of  the  same  ultimate  conviction  as  Carlyle,  though  of 
kindlier  temper,  and  confronted  by  the  same  social  condi- 
tions, it  was  no  doubt  inevitable  that  he  should  become  a 
follower  and  professed  disciple  of  Carlyle.  But  it  was 
equally  inevitable  that  a  nature  so  differently  endowed  and 
trained,  so  much  wider  in  range  both  of  experience  and 
sympathy,  should  greatly  modify  Carlyle 's  stern  and  barren 
gospel  of  work.  Seeing  clearly  the  need  of  inspired  leader- 
ship, he  saw  also  what  Carlyle  failed  to  see, — the  equal  need 
of  self-help  and  individual  initiative.  He  had  an  abiding 
faith  in  our  common  human  nature,  which  saved  him  alike 
from  Carlyle 's  despair  and  from  his  consequent  inaction. 
The  leadership  which,  in  his  view,  was  to  save  the  world, 
was  not  concentrated  into  fierce  bursts  of  meteoric  splendor, 
soon  to  be  quenched  in  darkness  as  profound  as  ever;  but 
distributed — lodged  in  its  degree  in  every  soul  that  truly 
loves  truth  and  righteousness.  The  world  he  looked  out 
upon  seemed  bad  indeed ;  but  he  had  no  mind  either  to  fold 
his  hands  in  despair,  or  make  the  confusion  worse  by  use- 
less wailing  and  denunciation.  Rather  would  he  rouse  every 
true  heart  within  sound  of  his  voice  to  range  himself  man- 
fully on  the  side  of  order  and  right,  and  avail  himself  of 
whatever  leadership  might  be  at  hand, — until  through  sol- 
dierly obedience  he  should  himself  become  a  leader  in  his 
place  in  the  mighty  army  of  God. 

The  correction  which  Ruskin  here  applies  to  Carlyle 's 
scheme  is  important  in  many  ways.  First  of  all,  it  makes 
possible  a  continuous  betterment  of  society,  in  place  of 
fierce  paroxysmal  reform,  with  long  succeeding  periods  of 
discouragement  and  relapse.  Provision,  moreover,  is  made 
for  a  continuous  organization  of  society,  evermore  renewed 
from  within,  instead  of  its  momentary  organization  out  of 


13 

chaos  by  force  from  without — an  effort  which  usually  ex- 
hausts Carlyle's  hero  before  he  can  accomplish  much  else. 
And,  since  all  members  of  society  are  participant,  the  pro- 
cess is  truly  educative  for  all,  and  not  merely  coercive.  In 
fine,  Ruskin's  scheme,  though  as  thoroughly  aristocratic  as 
Carlyle's,  faces  in  the  opposite  direction;  for  while  Car- 
lyle's  interest  seems  wholly  dramatic  and  spectacular,  cen- 
tered upon  the  person  and  the  performance  of  the  hero; 
Euskin  's  is  wholly  practical,  centered  on  the  outcome  to  the 
masses. 

But  this  correction  is  not  all.  Ruskin  saw  clearly— as 
Carlyle  did  not— that  work  alone  cannot  satisfy  the  need  of 
the  human  spirit;  nor  work  with  obedience  and  reverence 
added.  Even  so,  it  is  no  better  than  slavery,  unless  there  is 
for  the  workman  joy  in  his  work  and  in  the  fruits  of  it. 
Were  we  not  all,  alas,  too  familiar  with  the  fact,  with  what 
horror  and  indignation  should  we  regard  an  organization  of 
society  which  inevitably  dooms  any  of  its  members  to  work 
necessarily  deadly?— to  labor  that  kills  the  body,  like  that 
in  the  fierce  heat  at  the  furnace-mouth,  or  amidst  noxious 
fumes;  or  labor  that  kills  the  soul  through  its  unending 
monotony  and  infinitesimal  range,  as  in  many  departments 
of  manufacture  with  modern  machinery ;  or  labor  that  kills 
both  body  and  soul, — so  poorly  paid  that  the  utmost  effort 
of  the  worker  does  not  earn  him  enough  sustenance  to  enable 
him  to  continue  the  work  by  which  alone  he  lives!  This 
dire  evil  Carlyle  had  seen, — had  painted  it  in  lines  of  fire 
on  a  background  as  black  as  the  walls  of  Tartarus; — and 
there  he  had  stopped.  Ruskin  set  himself  to  do  what  he 
could  to  abate  it ;  devoting  thereto  the  full  strength  of  his 
manhood,  and  a  fortune  by  no  means  inconsiderable  for 
those  days.  His  efforts  were  manifold,  but  mainly  along 
three  lines:  (1)  To  arouse  the  conscience  of  an  indifferent 
public  to  a  sense  of  its  responsibility  for  its  brother's  blood, 
by  a  succession  of  appeals  unparalleled  for  passionate  earn- 
estness and  eloquence — ^the  utterances  by  which  Ruskin  is 


14 


still  most  generally  known.  (2)  To  expose  the  fallacies — as 
he  deemed  them — of  current  economical  theory,  and  the 
viciousness  of  commercial  morals  behind  which  the  srreed 
that  wrought  such  cruel  wrong  was  seeking  to  shelter  itself. 
This  matter  is  beset  with  too  many  difficulties  to  permit  of 
its  being  handled  here.  I  may  only  remark  in  passing  that, 
upon  the  whole,  Ruskin  's  way  of  thinking  seems  to  be  gain- 
ing ground  among  thoughtful  men;  namely,  that  there  are 
values  in  the  world  which  are  real,  and  not  merely  the  out- 
come of  fortuitous  ' '  supply  and  demand ' ' ;  that  a  nation 's 
real  wealth  is  in  the  life  and  character  of  its  people,  rather 
than  in  some  accumulation  of  mere  material  things  pur- 
chased perhaps  at  the  sacrifice  of  that  other ;  that  an  econ- 
omy claiming  to  be  called  political  should  above  all  recognize 
and  seek  to  conserve  the  chief  values  of  the  nation,  or  else, 
if  unable  or  unwilling  to  concern  itself  Avith  these,  it  should 
be  content  to  wear  the  truer  designation  of  commercial 
economy.  All  this,  however,  was  but  incidental  to  his  main 
effort:  (3)  to  improve  both  the  character  and  the  condition 
of  the  workingman,  by  helping  him  to  help  himself.  This 
he  would  do  by  keeping  constantly  before  the  workingman 
higher  ideals  both  of  life  and  of  work ;  by  encouraging  him 
to  make  himself  master  of  his  craft ;  and  by  creating  among 
the  wealthy  a  discriminating  taste  in  favor  of  genuine  hand- 
workmanship  as  against  the  machine-made  article.  Within 
the  brief  compass  of  this  paper  it  is  impossible  to  give  any 
adequate  idea  of  the  amount  of  time  and  energy  Euskin  put 
into  this  labor  of  love.  Schools,  museums,  workingmen's 
colleges  and  classes,  experimental  farms,  workshops,  homes, 
communities;  the  enlistment  and  training  of  an  army  of 
helpers,  incessant  teaching,  planning,  writing,  lecturing, 
printing ; — until  the  over-tasked  heart  and  brain  could  hold 
out  no  longer.  He  rests  now  from  his  labors,  but  his  works 
do  follow  him,  in  Toynbee  Halls,  college  settlements,  work- 
ingmen  's  clubs,  and  organizations  of  similar  intent  through- 
out England,  America,  and  the  Antipodes. 


15 


My  account  of  Ruskin's  contribution  to  the  human  prob- 
lem will  not  be  complete,  however,  until  I  have  recalled  the 
work  of  his  earlier  years,  and  his  remarkable  vindication  of 
the  place  and  power  of  Beauty  in  human  life,  and  its  pro- 
found relation  to  character.  Wordsworth  and  the  poets  no 
doubt  were  in  this  field  before  him,  and  Emerson,  too;  but 
to  none  had  it  ever  been  given  to  expound  with  such  full- 
ness of  illustration  and  such  convincing  power  the  divine 
beauty  which  everywhere  clothes  the  world, — in  flower,  bird, 
and  tree ;  in  valley,  plain,  and  mountain ;  in  river,  sea,  and 
sky.  Ruskin  approached  this  subject  through  Art,  and 
nearly  all  his  writing  on  it  is  ostensibly  criticism  of  art. 
But  while  the  beauty  of  art  is  included  in  his  scheme,  art  is 
for  him  but  a  transcript,  a  memorandum,  from  Nature, — an 
appreciation  and  interpretation  by  a  gifted  soul  of  some 
glimpse  of  her  transcendent  beauty, — precious  indeed,  but 
chiefly  so  because  it  enables  our  duller  eyes  to  see  thence- 
forth in  Nature  what  otherwise  would  have  been  hidden 
from  them.  And  this,  I  take  it,  is  precisely  the  value  to  us 
of  Ruskin 's  writing  on  this  theme.  Never  before  had  there 
been  such  an  opening  of  blind  eyes,  such  a  quickening  of 
dull  senses,  such  conscious  delight  in  the  beauty  of  this  fair 
world,  as  followed — and  still  follows — the  reading  of  the 
Modern  Painters. 

Ruskin 's  work,  then,  as  we  review  it,  is  seen  to  be  very 
largely  a  correction  of  the  narrowness  of  Carlyle's  doc- 
trine, a  quickening  of  its  barrenness  by  infusing  into  it  the 
vital  elements  of  brightness,  hope,  and  self-help,  and  by 
illustrating  in  various  ways  its  applicability  to  existing  hu- 
man society  in  all  its  degrees.  In  so  doing  he  had  availed 
himself,  as  we  have  seen,  of  certain  important  elements  of 
Emerson's  doctrine,  though  not,  of  course,  necessarily  de- 
rived from  him.  Still  the  correction  as  a  whole  was  a  dis- 
tinct approximation  toward  Emerson 's  position.  There  was 
equal  need,  however,  that  Emerson 's  doctrine  should  receive 
correction ;  that  his  life  of  the  spirit  should  be  taken  out  of 


16 


its  barren  isolation,  should  be  brought  into  the  current  of 
the  world 's  life,  enriching  and  enriched ;  that  the  individual 
be  brought  to  recognize  his  relation  and  his  obligation  to  so- 
ciety ;  that  a  liberty,  threatening  at  any  moment  to  explode 
into  antinomianism  and  anarchy,  should  be  taught  its  strict 
limits. 

The  man  to  apply  these  corrections  was  Matthew  Ar- 
nold. Deeply  enamored  of  the  Greek  brightness,  intelli- 
gence, and  reasoned  self-control,  he  was  shocked  and  af- 
fronted by  the  unreason,  the  freakishness,  the  excess  which 
everywhere  appeared  in  English  character  and  life;  and  at 
first,  chiefly  by  the  entire  absence  of  any  sure  standard  of 
taste,  or  even  of  intelligence,  in  English  literature.  Here 
genius  of  the  highest  order,  it  seemed,  did  not  avail  to  save 
a  man  from  losing  himself  in  eccentricity  and  caprice,  from 
working  on  in  serene  ignorance  of  what  elsewhere  had  been 
thought  and  done,  and  so  wasting  his  powers  on  work  fore- 
doomed to  failure.  Popular  approval  was  no  sound  crite- 
rion of  excellence,  though  commonly  accepted  as  such.  The 
verdict  of  English  criticism  was  of  no  avail,  for  it  was  as 
freakish  and  uncertain  as  the  work  it  dealt  with,  voicing  in 
oracular  fashion  nothing  more  than  the  critic's  unreasoned 
and  ignorant  likes  and  dislikes.  Bureaucratic  control,  like 
that  of  the  French  Academy,  was  plainly  impossible, — ab- 
horrent to  all  English  traditions  of  freedom.  What  was  to 
be  done?  How  might  any  real  standard  of  excellence  be 
found  to  correct  the  vagaries  of  individual  judgment  and 
effort?  Arnold's  answer  was  that  the  nearest  possible  ap- 
proximation to  the  absolute  standard  of  excellence  in  any 
given  field  is  to  be  found  in  a  consensus  of  opinion  on  the 
part  of  the  men  best  qualified  to  judge  matters  in  that  field ; 
that  is,  men  of  judicial  temper  whose  knowledge  is  such  that 
they  form  their  judgment  of  the  new  in  the  light  of  the  best 
that  has  ever  been  known  and  thought  on  that  subject.  This 
is  Arnold's  famous  method  of  criticism,  neither  autocratic, 
nor  bureaucratic,  nor  the  result  of  universal  suffrage;  but 


17 


aristocratic  in  the  true  sense  of  the  term — a  control  by  the 
best.  The  judges  in  this  high  court  of  criticism,  it  is  true, 
are  never  finally  gazetted  and  named ;  but  that  does  not  de- 
stroy its  effectiveness.  It  matters  little  how  many  unworthy 
ones  sit  with  them  on  the  bench.  The  verdict  of  each  ' '  best ' ' 
carries  its  own  warrant  of  intelligence  and  fairness  written 
on  its  face ;  all  other  votes  are  easily  discovered  and  thrown 
out. 

This  method,  it  may  be  urged,  is  nothing  but  the  method 
of  plain  common  sense,  practiced  unconsciously  from  the 
beginning  of  the  world,  and  the  means  of  all  progress  made 
so  far.  Very  true.  But  that  does  not  prevent  the  method 
from  being  obscured  or  forgotten,  and  needing  therefore  to 
be  rediscovered,  consciously  restated,  and  applied  to  new 
conditions;  needing  especially  redefinition  of  the  term  so 
sure  to  be  misunderstood  or  perverted,  ''the  best."  There 
can  be  no  better  proof  of  the  need  of  it  in  Arnold's  day 
than  the  revolution  it  wrought  in  English  literary  criticism ; 
— a  revolution  of  which  Arnold  was  the  pioneer,  and  in 
which  he  is  still  one  of  the  chief  landmarks. 

The  method  was  far-reaching,  capable  of  widest  appli- 
cation. Arnold  began  with  literature,  but  it  soon  became 
evident  that  his  interest  was  not  so  much  in  literature  it- 
self as  in  what  lay  behind  it,  namely,  in  life.  Poetry  for 
him  was  a  criticism  of  life.  With  Socrates  he  was  sure  that 
an  unexamined  life  is  not  worth  living.  So  to  English  life 
as  he  found  it,  in  all  its  chief  aspects  and  problems,  he  be- 
gan to  apply  the  searching  test  of  his  analysis  and  criticism : 
to  politics,  manners,  morals,  religion;  to  the  press,  the 
church,  the  Bible,  the  Irish  question,  to  "marriage  with  a 
deceased  wife 's  sister ' ' !  Everywhere  he  found  the  same 
faults: — "want  of  sensitiveness  of  intellectual  conscience, 
disbelief  in  right  reason,  dislike  of  authority,"  blind  follow- 
ing of  "stock  notions  and  habits,"  foolish  complacency  in 
"doing  as  one  likes."  To  Arnold  himself  were  strikingly 
applicable  the  words  he  wrote  of  Goethe : — 


18 


Physician  of  the  iron  age, 

He  took  the  suffering  human  race; 
He  read  each  wound,  each  weakness  clear, 

And  struck  his  finger  on  the  place. 
And  said :    ' '  Thou  ailest  here,  and  here  ! ' ' 

Of  course,  there  was  tremendous  outcry  on  the  part  of  those 
who  felt  his  lancet  and  probe — an  outcry  to  which  we  on 
this  side  of  the  Atlantic  contributed  our  full  share,  when- 
ever our  pet  w^eaknesses  were  touched. 

But  what  is  to  be  the  remedy  for  all  this?  Culture, 
which  Arnoldexplains  to  be  the  "pursuit  of  our  total  per- 
fection by  means  of  getting  to  know,^  on  all  the  matters 
which  most  concern  us,  the  best  which  has  been  thought  and 
said  in  the  world;  and  through  this  knowledge,  turning  a 
stream  "oT'TiFesh  and  free  thought  upon  our  stock  notions 
and  habits."^  Culture  is  not  merely  "the  endeavor  to  see 
things  as  they  are,  to  draw  towards  a  knowledge  of  the  uni- 
versal order  which  seems  to  be  intended  and  aimed  at  in 
the  world,  which  it  is  man's  happiness  to  go  along  with,  or 
his  misery  to  go  counter  to" — not  merely  thus  to  learn 
' '  reason  and  the  will  of  God, ' '  but  beyond  this,  it  is  the  en- 
deavor ' '  to  make  reason  and  the  will  of  God  prevail. '  '*  The 
perfection  which  culture  aims  at  is  "an  inward  condition 
of  mind  and  spirit,  not  an  outward  set  of  circumstances ' ' — ^ 
"a  growing  and  a  becoming,  not  a  having  and  a  resting." 
"And  because  men  are  all  members  of  one  great  whole,  and 
the  sympathy  v/hich  is  in  human  nature  will  not  allow  one 
member  to  be  indifferent  to  the  rest,  or  to  have  perfect 
welfare  independent  of  the  rest,  the  expansion  of  our  hu- 
manity, to  suit  the  idea  of  perfection  which  culture  forms, 
must  be  a  general  expansion.  Perfection  is  not  possible 
while  the  individual  remains  isolated.  The  individual  is  re- 
quired, under  pain  of  being  stunted  and  enfeebled,  if  he 
disobeys,  to  carry  others  along  with  him  in  his  march  to- 
ward perfection,  to  be  continually  doing  all  he  can  to  en- 


^  Culture  and  Anarchy,  Preface,  xi. 
*  Culture  and  Anarchy,  p.  9. 
'  Ibid.,  p.  12. 


19 


lar^e  and  increase  the  volume  of  the  human  stream  sweep- 
ing thitherward."^  And  finally,  perfection  *'is  a  harmo- 
nious expansion  of  all  the  powers  which  make  beauty  and 
worth  in  human  nature,  and  is  not  consistent  with  the  de- 
velopment of  any  one  power  at  the  expense  of  the  rest. '  ''^ 

This  statement  of  Arnold's  position  brings  out  clearly 
both  the  agreement  between  him  and  Emerson,  and  the  dif- 
ference. Both  seek  perfection,  and  that  perfection  is  in- 
ward and  spiritual ;  but  unlike  Emerson,  Arnold  sees  clearly 
that  the  plant  of  perfection  cannot  be  grown  in  vacuo,  but 
only  in  the  soil  of  human  society,  with  the  help  of  its  brac- 
ing and  corrective  contact ; — that  indeed  it  is  not  a  plant  at 
all,  but  a  harvest  waving  to  the  utmost  bounds  of  earth. 
The  life  which  quickens  and  guides  its  growth  both  call  by 
the  same  name.  Reason,  and  each  adds  his  own  illustrative 
synonyms:  ''Reason  and  the  soul  which  inspires  all  men," 
says  Emerson.  ''Reason  and  the  will  of  God,"  says  Arnold. 
But  they  are  not  quite  the  same  thing.  Emerson 's  Reason  is 
intuitive,  transcendent — a  direct  vision  of  ultimate  truth. 
For  Arnold,  as  for  Tennyson,  the  "will  of  God"  is  none 
other  than  "the  increasing  purpose"  which  "through  the 
ages  runs, ' '  known  to  us  only  as  we  watch  its  unfolding.  Of 
anjrthing  claiming  to  be  "the  will  of  God"  we  can  be  sure 
only  by  seeing  how  it  coincides  with  the  observed  curve  of 
human  progress.  Arnold,  in  fact,  only  reiterates  and  en- 
forces the  caution  uttered  long  ago  by  St.  John :  ' '  Beloved, 
believe  not  every  spirit,  but  try  the  spirits  whether  they  are 
of  God,  because  many  false  prophets  are  gone  out  into  the 
world."  For  any  such  caution  we  look  in  vain  in  Emerson's 
writing.  Was  it  because  his  own  serene  intelligence  and  his 
well-ordered  instincts  seemed  to  call  for  little  such  correc- 
tion ;  or  was  his  championship  of  liberty  so  absorbing  that 
without  thought  of  results  he  would  sweep  away  every  ele- 
ment of  control  and  authority  ?  I  cannot  say.  Lastly,  both 
men  stood  aloof  from  participation  in  any  scheme  of  practi- 

« Ibid.,  p.  11. 
'  Ibid.,  p.  12. 


20 


cal  reform,  and  upon  mucli  the  same  stated  grounds,  namely, 
that  all  real  reform  is  of  the  spirit,  and  not  of  circumstance, 
and  that  the  spiritual  aim  is  apt  to  be  lost  in  the  hurly-burly 
and  strife  of  practical  reform.  But  behind  this  common 
reason  there  seems  to  be  in  the  one  case  a  distinct  lack  of 
interest  in  action  itself  as  unimportant,  while  in  the  other 
interest  in  action  is  plainly  so  great  and  so  objective  that 
the  thinker  detaches  himself  from  action  that  he  may  the 
more  surely  follow  its  course  and  judge  its  outcome. 

A  summary  of  these  separate  teachings  might  run  some- 
what as  follows : — 

"Man  is  spirit,"  says  Carlyle,  "and  destined  to  be  par- 
taker of  the  fullness  of  God.  That  this  end  may  be  achieved, 
God's  help  is  given  the  race  in  the  shape  of  inspired  leader- 
ship, with  the  accompanying  discipline  of  reverence,  obe- 
dience, and  work."  "God's  help  is  given,"  says  Emerson, 
"through  direct  illumination  of  the  individual  spirit,  with 
the  discipline  of  thought,  freedom,  and  self-reliance." 
"The  leadership  vouchsafed  to  society,"  says  Ruskin,  "is 
not  merely  occasional,  autocratic,  and  spectacular,  but  con- 
stant, reciprocal,  and  educative  for  all.  The  obedience  re- 
quired is  not  blind  submission  to  force,  but  a  loving  out- 
reach toward  excellence.  Nor  is  work  a  barren  exaction  of 
effort  that  we  may  exist,  but  it  is  the  only  means  by  which 
we  may  lay  hold  of  the  joy  destined  for  us  in  each  other,  and 
in  Nature,  and  in  thought,  'Man  shall  not  live  by  bread 
alone,  but  by  every  word  which  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth 
of  God.'  "  "God  speaks,  no  doubt,"  says  Arnold,  "to  our 
secret  soul ;  but  we  must  make  sure  that  it  is  His  voice  we 
hear,  and  not  some  echo  out  of  our  own  dreams  and  vain 
imaginings.  Our  private  impression,  therefore,  must  be 
tested  and  corrected  by  His  word  as  it  is  writ  large  and  un- 
mistakable on  the  pages  of  human  history,  and  in  the  lines 
of  human  thought.  And  only  by  a  progress  which  enlarges 
all  sides  of  our  nature,  and  carries  with  it  all  members  of 
our  race,  shall  we  ever  come  unto  a  perfect  manhood,  'unto 
the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fullness  of  God. '  ' ' 


